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After reviewing hundreds of scientific studies, researchers have concluded that dry conditions -- not damage caused by bark beetles -- may be responsible for wildfires in lodgepole pine and spruce forests. "[I]f you look into the long-term ecology of these forests, there is a high fire risk under drought conditions, even when the trees are green and the landscape looks beautiful," said Dominik Kulakowski, assistant professor of geography and biology at Clark University.

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A group of Palm Beach County, Fla., high-schoolers and recent graduates spoke to students at an elementary school this week about living with disabilities. The teens explained how their conditions -- ranging from Tourette syndrome to deafness -- affect their daily lives and interactions with peers. The event was part of the school's "Day of Inclusion."

Climate change may be contributing to damaging wildfires in the West, according to research from Michigan State University. Researchers found that 3.6 million acres burned in the region during August last year -- the largest tally for the month since 2000. "Our findings suggest that future lower atmospheric conditions may favor larger and more extreme wildfires, posing an additional challenge to fire and forest management," said geography professor Lifeng Luo.

The Colorado Senate has unanimously approved a bill to establish precautionary measures to reduce wildfire risk from prescribed burns in state forests. The bill requires continual monitoring of such a fire, and communities would have to be informed of planned burns in their area.

In the early 1900s, several explorers mounted expeditions to Antarctica in the hopes of becoming the first to reach the South Pole, write Neal Lineback, professor emeritus at Appalachian State University, and geographer Mandy Lineback Gritzner. Robert Falcon Scott's team members experienced difficulties on their journey: Their motorized sleds were ineffective, and they were unable to place a supply depot as close to the pole as they had hoped. When they finally reached the South Pole in January 1912, they found that a team led by another explorer, Roald Amundsen, had beaten them there by about a month. Scott and his team died while trying to make the journey back to their base camp.

Highly skilled workers are clustering together in the U.S., but this seems to be having a negative effect on lower-skilled workers, writes Richard Florida of the University of Toronto. Lower-skilled workers in large metropolitan areas tend to see a boost in wages, but this gain is erased by higher housing prices, he notes. "There is a rising tide of sorts, but it only lifts about the most advantaged third of the workforce, leaving the other 66 percent much further behind," Florida writes.